Freak injuries happen. For some reason they seem to happen a lot in baseball. Take for example Yankee reliever David Robertson who may now be out for several weeks after spraining his foot carrying boxes, empty boxes, down some stairs. He probably could’ve been more careful, but really, who expects to get hurt carrying empty boxes. It couldn’t have been prevented, just bad luck.
On the other hand, there are cases like David Price of the Rays who somehow injured his neck by wiping his head down with a towel in between innings. That sounds like a fluke, but it isn’t, which is why Price wins our Bad Spring Training Decision of the Day.
You see, as Price admits, this isn’t the first time this has happened:
“I was drying my head off after the second inning. It’s happened to me two times before. I catch the back of my head and it pulls my head forward,” Price said. “I felt it in the back of my neck.”
That’s right, this wasn’t even the second time Price has managed to this, it’s the third.
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me three times and somebody on the training staff needs to hide the towels from you.
Maybe we should cut Price some slack because I still don’t think I understand the physics of how a towel catches someone in the back of the head any yanks it forward with such force that it induces spasms that figure to keep him out for a week. Or maybe we should wonder if it is high time the Rays find a new brand of towels, perhaps something with a higher thread count so they are less sticky on the back of Price’s skull. Maybe they could bump the towel budget by, I don’t know, an extra 2%.
What? No rimshot?
